Starting A Story

Hi, I'm Ralph. My favorite thing to do is to run on the ocean. Yes, it's a little strange. Okay. There was this weird thing that happened to the oceans that wasn't that long ago really. Ah, okay not a lot people really do it any ways. It's much easier to ride a boat or something.

I was on the beach when I saw this guy run right onto the beach from the water. He looked tired and sat down for a rest and to get some water. I went up to him because obviously I was curious. I said, “Hey, guy. What just happened?” He was all worn out, and gestured to give him some more time to catch his breath.

I was so excited – really really excited. I was looking at him carefully trying to see if he was some weird fish or something. No he wasn't, but he had some weird clothes on for sure! There was a large backpack pack – a camping one, ocean camping?

He got back some breath. Apparently he was from another country because he had a real think accent. I don't know where he was from, god. “Gweyll Yai vun vun on vater fromz how you says Earope.”

I was confused and all. So I got the idea and asked him, “So, Huh? You ran from Europe?”

The guy said some more stuff like, “Tsdats eyet. Yai iz much much tired. Yai fall sleeps now.”

Ovbiously I said, “Geeze. Wait. That's not enough.”

He mentioned this was the last think he could say, “Yoo run run vast and stay vup. Yoo stoop and shink. Vater is dafferint lately. Try. Try. Snore. Snore.”

Okay so he was right – he was all right. I gave a good run and, man, I was jogging on water! The water felt like it was ground, but when I stopped it got back to normal and I sank. I had the swim all the way back. I was soaked in my clothes and that dude was asleep on the beach.

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That's how I got the idea any ways. I wanted to cross the ocean just like that guy did. I wondered if he ran non-stop or if there were places to stop on the way. It seemed like it would take forever to run that far. How could he run non-stop from here (here is Texas) from Europe?

I didn't see that guy again, so I couldn't ask him any more questions. I asked people around me about and everyone seemed not to care. I did notice the television was talking about how the ocean was getting weird. It was like it wasn't very important though. They didn't mention running on it.

I decided to practice every day. After school I would get a snack and then ride my bike to the beach. I found some cool goggles at the store that I wore.

I wasn't used to running all that much. It took a long time of me just running around to get used to it. I was wondering how the heck that guy made it all the way from Europe. I could barely get any where.

But I improved a bit. I got a life jacket when I started going out far. I would sometimes loose track of how far off I'd run off – I'd get so pooped that I just sank into the water and rested a little bit. It was hard to get back running if I had fallen in.

I perfected a technique using a boogey board. I could stand on it in
the water and hop out real quick and start running again. I had the boogey board tied to me so I could snag it as I started to run again. But I realized why that guy I first saw running had that backpack. I'm sure I need lots of stuff to do ticky tasks. Imagine all the crazy things I would have to deal with crossing the Atlantic. Storms and Sharks, bur, crazy.
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